- Capitalism and Alternatives -

nnnnnnn

In Reply to: mmmmmm. posted by Red Deathy on July 21, 1999 at 18:52:00:

: My local bus company is a monopoly, so I deig them nicely- you and Joel accepted that certain sectors could be monopolised.

Their competition is from you deciding to find other ways, get a bike, moped, pool cars, hire your own minibus etc etc. It isnt a closed door hence the price isnt $5 per mile. The price will be just enough so that you dont find it worthwhile to pursue alternatives. Even if they have a monopoly on a bus route they cannot have one on 'getting from A to B'

: Not necessarilly infinite, enough to discourage investors, and articulalry, enough in comparisson with the start up costs for copetitors (i.e. If I want to set up a bus route, it'll cost me £1 million- StageCoach can throw me into bits by spending £100 K).

Observe the alternatives mentioned above, especially the pooled cars and minivans all chipping away. You dont have to rush in head to head. A larger concern might do that - simply to be made an offer, that happens too and it drains the 'monopolists' resources. The 'monopolist' cannot charge enough in the times when it is without competition either, because people find alternates as shown above. I wouldnt say competing with a company like that is easy, but its a very long way form 'impossible' or even 'unlikely'.

: 19th C. England, tried.....

....A mixed economy with some success. Soon put a stop to that though - all those commoners building factories and becoming richer than the landed gentry! whatever next.

: :he needs others too - an theyre pretty rich because of the voluntary association, all that associating to mutual benefit, my word!

: Not all, not by a long way.

A lot of them associated to the degree to which their skills were uniquely valuable to the intent of Bill et al, and for the janotors that wasnt much. A programmer can be a janitor, a janitor cant do the programming - who did Bill et al need to associate with the most? Thus, who did they seek to incentivize the most?

: Under socialism, no-one would be born in poverty anyway

Since you define poverty as relative to others then indeed no one can be, even if everyone had no more than bowl of rice per day, they would not be relatively poorer than the next man. Hence my comment that poverty should be defined objectively if it is to mean anything.

: But what of Billionaires? And Thats still a tiny number compared to the people who stay on average or below means. there are more rags to rags than rags to riches stories- capitalism cannot benefit the majority of people.

But theyre such lovely rags compared to 50 years ago! Anyway, yes there are more people who experience only slow and steady improvement in living standards over a lifetime - mostly that improvement comes from other people having created and distributed previously unthought of goodies and asking in return only the equivalent of a few hours in't mill (or comfy office etc etc)

: Think it was getty, ecided to try spending money faster than he could make it, giving to charity, IIRC, he failed.

Shows what a powerful engine for creation of wealth money is, and how superior a factory is at creating wealth than a charity. btw, just because some are very rich and charitable it does not mean they believe in liberty of free trade - observe Soros.

There has been no proof any more than we could offer Russia as proof of communist failings. You get the point though - selectiveness. If someone comes on and spouts a poorly supported argument for capitalism like the poster did then socialists knock him for it, but if some kid comes on and says 'its not fair, capitalism is evil look at all the starving people' or some such disconnected nonsense then he gets support and 'explanations' for his feelings, which for all we know may be just immature 'i wanna mercedes' envy of his more successful peers.

To be consistent I have to point out any flaws pro free marketers arguments aswell as anti free marketers.